Background

BACKGROUND:

Flavin-dependent histone demethylases regulate histone lysine methylation, an epigenetic mark that regulates gene expression and chromatin function (reviewed in 1). KDM1B is a recently identified histone H3K4 demethylase that is required to establish maternal genomic imprints; targeted disruption of the KDM1B gene in mice led to lethality in their embryos, suggesting demethylation of H3K4 is critical for establishing the DNA methylation imprints (2). KDM1B has also been shown to play a role in the transcription elongation in several genes (3).